Tag: Violence

Human-ities · Performativity · Philosophy · Public Space

The Violence of Participation

Sebastian AlvarezLeave a comment

“Participation is war. Any form of participation is already a form of conflict. In war, enemy and adversary usually hold territory, which they can gain or lose, while each has a spokesman or authority that can govern, submit, or collapse. In order to participate in any environment or situation, one needs to understand the forces of conflict that act upon that environment. Participation is often understood as a means of becoming part of something through proactive contribution and the occupation of a particular role. However it seems that this role is rarely understood as a critical platform of engagement, but rather based on romantic conceptions of harmony and solidarity. In the context, I would like to promote an understanding of conflictual participation, one that acts as an uninvited irritant.” – Extract from Marcus Miessenʼs essay The Violence of Participation

Via Sternberg-Press

Philosophy · Social/Politics · Theory

The Spirit of Terrorism

Sebastian AlvarezLeave a comment

Not only are all history and power plays disrupted, but so are the conditions of analysis. One must take one’s time. For as long as events were at a standstill, one had to anticipate and overcome them. But when they speed up, one must slow down; without getting lost under a mass of discourses and the shadow of war (“nuage de la guerre”: literally clouds announcing war), and while keeping undiminished the unforgettable flash of images.

All the speeches and commentaries betray a gigantic abreaction to the event itself and to the fascination that it exerts. Moral condemnation and the sacred union against terrorism are equal to the prodigious jubilation engendered by witnessing this global superpower being destroyed; better, by seeing it more or less self-destroying, even suiciding spectacularly. Though it is (this superpower) that has, through its unbearable power, engendered all that violence brewing around the world, and therefore this terrorist imagination which — unknowingly — inhabits us all.

That we have dreamed of this event, that everybody without exception has dreamt of it, because everybody must dream of the destruction of any power hegemonic to that degree, – this is unacceptable for Western moral conscience, but it is still a fact, and one which is justly measured by the pathetic violence of all those discourses which attempt to erase it.

Excerpt from an essay by Jean Baudrillard. Read it HERE or HERE

Social/Politics

A Land Without Guns: How Japan Has Virtually Eliminated Shooting Deaths

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In part by forbidding almost all forms of firearm ownership, Japan has as few as two gun-related homicides a year.

Waikiki’s Japanese-filled ranges are the sort of quirk you might find in any major tourist town, but they’re also an intersection of two societies with wildly different approaches to guns and their role in society. Friday’s horrific shooting at an Aurora, Colorado, movie theater has been a reminder that America’s gun control laws are the loosest in the developed world and its rate of gun-related homicide is the highest. Of the world’s 23 “rich” countries, the U.S. gun-related murder rate is almost 20 times that of the other 22. With almost one privately owned firearm per person, America’s ownership rate is the highest in the world; tribal-conflict-torn Yemen is ranked second, with a rate about half of America’s.

Excerpt from an article written by Max Fisher, The Atlantic. Continue HERE

Paint/Illust./Mix-Media

Fifth-Dimension Dentistry Treatment – Tatsuyuki Tanaka

Sebastian AlvarezLeave a comment

GIRL: Not yet?

GIRL: Are they really going to do it?
BOY: I’m telling you, they’ll do it. Watch.

DOCTOR: So… what seems to be the problem?

PATIENT: Uh, it’s just some pain in one of my back teeth. Uh…
DOCTOR: Mmm hmm.

DOCTOR: I see. The root of your pain does not exist in our dimension. Kishikawa-kun, go get the usual stuff.
NURSE: OK.
PATIENT: Huh?

(onomatopoeia)

DOCTOR: This machine will expand your body into the fifth dimension. Then we’ll get rid of what’s causing your toothache.
PATIENT: Huh?

(onomatopoeia)

PATIENT: Uh… I think it’s just a cavity. What the hell is this?
NURSE: Please don’t move.

DOCTOR: Just relax. This is a long lost technique from the Golden Age that I managed to get my hands on. Trust me.

NURSE: Here we go!

PATIENT: Naaaa…

NURSE: Heave-ho! Heave-ho!
DOCTOR: Looking good. Looking good.
PATIENT: Everything’s starting to look distorted.

PATIENT: I… I can see little people.
DOCTOR: That’s fine.

DOCTOR: Kishikawa-kun. See the toothache spores sprouting up over there? Cut them off.
NURSE: OK.
PATIENT: Oh, that feels nice.

NURSE: Doctor. The handle is stuck. It won’t turn back.
DOCTOR: Again? It’s such an old machine.

NURSE: What should we do?
DOCTOR: Just leave it. It’ll come unstuck eventually.
GIRL: Wow.
BOY: Amazing.

PATIENT: Doctor!!!
DOCTOR: Don’t worry. Don’t worry.
GIRL: Fifth-dimension treatment!
BOY: Yeah!

Amazon Reviews: Enthusiasts of contemporary comic art are in for a treat with this compelling collection of artwork from Tanaka Tatsuyuki, whose credits include storyboards for Gainax Studio’s Secret of Blue Water and work with Studio 4C. In the vein of progressive world class comic artists including Katsuya Terada and Mobius, Tatsuyuki’s illustration work ranges from the innocence of Moomins to nightmarish urban imagery of robots, punks, violence and weird and twisted indescribable beings.

Published in Cannabis Works (2003) // Scans via Digik Gallery. Translated by Pink Tentacle.

Bio · Human-ities · Public Space · Science · Vital-Edible-Health

Study Suggests Lead Dust Is Linked to Violence

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Childhood exposure to lead dust has been linked to lasting physical and behavioral effects, and now lead dust from vehicles using leaded gasoline has been linked to instances of aggravated assault two decades after exposure, says Tulane toxicologist Howard W. Mielke.

Vehicles using leaded gasoline that contaminated cities’ air decades ago have increased aggravated assault in urban areas, researchers say.

The new findings are published in the journal Environment International by Mielke, a research professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the Tulane University School of Medicine, and demographer Sammy Zahran at the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University.

The researchers compared the amount of lead released in six cities: Atlanta, Chicago, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, New Orleans and San Diego, during the years 1950-1985. This period saw an increase in airborne lead dust exposure due to the use of leaded gasoline. There were correlating spikes in the rates of aggravated assault approximately two decades later, after the exposed children grew up.

After controlling for other possible causes such as community and household income, education, policing effort and incarceration rates, Mielke and Zahran found that for every one percent increase in tonnages of environmental lead released 22 years earlier, the present rate of aggravated assault was raised by 0.46 percent.

“Children are extremely sensitive to lead dust, and lead exposure has latent neuroanatomical effects that severely impact future societal behavior and welfare,” says Mielke. “Up to 90 per cent of the variation in aggravated assault across the cities is explained by the amount of lead dust released 22 years earlier.” Tons of lead dust were released between 1950 and 1985 in urban areas by vehicles using leaded gasoline, and improper handling of lead-based paint also has contributed to contamination.

Text and Image via Science Daily